Outcrop evidence of polygonal faulting in Ypresian marine clays (Southern North Sea Basin) leads to a new synthesis

Layer-bound, polygonal fault systems (PFS) in marine, fine-grained sediments have been documented with seismic data over large areas in over 100 basins. The questions of how, when and how fast these muds broke without tectonic stress were still open. This study covered the missing observational length scales from 100 m to μms with a continuous range of outcrop observations and related lab results from two quarries in Ypresian marine unlithified...